Benjamin Lee

Ben Lee teaches courses in modern and contemporary poetry, literary theory, and African American literature.  His research focuses on twentieth-century American poetry and poetics, with a special emphasis on vernacular and avant-garde approaches.   He is writing a book on experimental poetry and U.S. culture after WWII.

Selected Publications

• Co-editor, "Is There Life after Identity Politics?" special issue of New Literary History, 31.4 (Autumn 2000).

Articles

• “Spontaneity and Improvisation in Postwar Experimental Poetry,” The Routledge Companion to Experimental Literature, eds. Joe Bray, Alison Gibbons, and Brian McHale (forthcoming April 2012).
• “Avant-Garde Poetry as Subcultural Practice: Mailer and Di Prima’s Hipsters,” New Literary History, 41.4 (Autumn 2010), 775-794.
• "Howl and Other Poems: Is There Old Left in These New Beats?" American Literature, 76.2 (June 2004), 367-89.
• "LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka and the Limits of Open Form," African American Review, 37.2-3 (Summer/Fall 2003), 371-87.

Reviews

• Review of Hazard Adams's The Offense of Poetry, Modern Philology, 101.9 (August 2011), E1-E4.
• “Frank O’Hara and the Turn to Friendship.” Review Essay on Andrew Epstein’s Beautiful Enemies: Friendship in Postwar American Poetry and Lytle Shaw’s Frank O’Hara: The Poetics of Coterie, Criticism 49.2 (Spring 2007), 243-247.

Honors

• John C. Hodges Excellence in Teaching Award, 2011.
• Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2010.
• Ransom Fellow, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin, 2009-10.

 

 

 

Contact Information

Benjamin Lee
Assistant Professor
Department of English
410 McClung Tower
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37996-0430

Office: (865) 974-6962
Fax: (865) 974-6926
E-mail: blee15@utk.edu

Education

B.A., Amherst College
M.A., University of Tennessee
M.A., Ph.D., University of Virginia

Research

Modern and Contemporary Poetry, Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture